Ex-Staffer Embroiled in NCAA Booster Scandal

Ex-House Homeland Security Committee staffer Robert Denton Herring is under investigation by the NCAA and Mississippi State University for acting as a booster for the university’s football team, the website LegiStorm reports.

According to other reports, Herring is not cooperating with the investigation.

Herring spent some time working for the Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C., before going to work for the committee staff of the chairman at the time, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). Herring worked in Thompson’s office from 2007 through 2009, first as an investigator and later as a professional staffer.

According to his LinkedIn profile, the former staffer left the Hill in 2009 and took a job with GAO in Georgia.

Since the story broke, Herring took down his LinkedIn profile but not before LegiStorm took a gander at the cached page after catching wind of the scandal. The folks at LegiStorm decided to look into Herring after they noticed his page was their most visited URL on Sept. 12.

“When you Google [Herring’s] name, not much comes up,” says Garrett Snedeker, the LegiStorm researcher who connected the dots. “We figured out that he went to Mississippi State, [but] he’s not a very public figure anymore.”